Life Update & What I'm Proud Of Accomplishing in 2017 (and a little of 2016!)

A while back I did a life update/check-in post and I got such a great response I figured it was time to check in yet again. In my first post I talked about things I was excited about, and while I continue to feel extremely excited and thankful and fortunate for all that I have (health,  family, friends, etc) this post is a little different. You see, I’ve always been a tightly wound person. Always a little on edge, sometimes more so than other times but generally I’m a bit anxious. As I’ve shared on my Instagram before, earlier this year I had my first ever real panic attack (although thinking back I believe I had one once as a kid during chemo...another story for another time!)

All that said, after the episode earlier this year I’ve largely been fine. But a couple of weekends ago something hit me and I had a bit of a breakdown. I’m not sure what the exact trigger was, perhaps it was spending a few days in a really amazing environment feeling renewed and refreshed only to realize getting back to life it wasn’t going to be easy to implement my new found goals and plans. The day to day is still there and while I know I’m extremely fortunate to be able to take the chance to step out of a traditional job to pursue creating something of my own, it’s scary and as many others in this realm have uttered before me, lonely. You’re largely on your own. Creating something from nothing, hoping it sticks. Hoping people like the stuff you make up. Hoping people like it enough for it to become a business so that you can get back to making a living! And hopefully doing some good along the way as well.

But in that training (the one right before said meltdown) what hit me was beyond all of that, beyond the just creating and sharing of things that are hopefully useful or inspiring to people, I need direction, organization, strategy. It’s not that I haven’t known this, but when you’re in the early phases of anything new, you’re doing whatever you can whenever you can to just create, get content out the door, and build whatever you’re trying to build.

My training with yogi Jason Crandell touched exactly on this topic, especially focused on this for yoga teachers. The idea of the schedule and classes often being super random and crazy and figuring out how to give it more long-term structure, more long-term purpose. And I love that idea for yoga and of course for everything else I’m doing. It's more the implementing and figuring out how to start that process that became overwhelming.

The day after my episode, once I was feeling back to my normal self I started thinking about it all in a more positive light. Sure this is risky, and there's a chance it doesn't become what I hope it becomes and there's a chance one day I may need to find some other type of career, but in the past year, I've done SO many new things.

As I may have shared before, I dread when I meet new people now and they ask what I do because it's hard to define and calling myself primarily a yoga instructor somehow feels like I'm selling myself short (which I know is silly) and when I say “I’ve got a blog” I tend to downplay what I do because I don’t feel like a “real blogger” yet. But when I really sit down and appreciate everything I've learned, taken on, and accomplished it's awesome. So today I'm sharing the things I'm proud of stepping out on a limb to create and execute over the past year, on my own.

1. Becoming a 200 Hour Certified Yoga Instructor
2. Hustling around the city & burbs to pick up a full schedule of classes within just a few months of choosing to do the gig "full time"
3. Creating, from scratch this very blog and the social media surrounding it. While I have a LONG way to go to meet any major goals, I have learned so much about producing content, creating a social media presence & community, etc.
4. Being asked to co-host the past two season's of the Discover Your Inner Awesome Podcast - not only has it been fun, but it's been a great way to start to hone some speaking skills (still got work to do!) and an overall interesting new medium to have at least dabbled in! Not to mention I've been a guest on other podcasts!
5. Creating some documents that I'm really excited to share, hopefully soon, that can be used as a lifestyle guide for people looking to make healthier more sustainable choices in their lives in every facet, from food to cleaning products to exercise. More to come on that ;-)

So taking a look back at 2017, or roughly the past year, instead of just focusing on what you haven't accomplished or how haphazard some of it might feel, can you appreciate what you have done? Even if small?

Thinking of all of you out there today that either suffer from anxiety or are doing something new and scary with your life, there are lots of us, and it's a tiny less lonely to remember that there are 7 billion other people on Earth all going through something.